The Blue Jays are coming off a monster weekend where they swept the A's. They stormed back from a six-run deficit to walk things off Friday, won 10-8 Saturday and then 8-0 Sunday behind big offense and a dominant Cy Young contender. They carried that over Monday with two solo home runs against the Yankees in the first inning.
Marcus Semien, who hit the walk-off shot Friday, went deep first:
And then Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. did the same:
Semien, 30, is having an incredible season after taking a one-year deal to move positions with the Blue Jays over the winter. He entered Monday hitting .266/.334/.530 (131 OPS+) with 5.9 WAR.
Oh, and he put the game out of reach in the ninth with a grand slam:
The Jays won, 8-0.
Semien now has 37 homers, which is already a career high. He has a shot at history, too.
Among primary second basemen (75 percent of games played at second), the record for home runs in a season is 43 (Davey Johnson, 1973). Only four have even gotten to 40 (Brian Dozier in 2016, Rogers Hornsby in 1922 and Ryne Sandberg in 1990 in addition to Johnson).
Simply, Semien bet on himself with the one-year deal and he's earning himself a huge payday this coming offseason.
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Guerrero's homer was the 40th of his breakout season. His Hall of Fame father topped 40 homers twice, with 42 in 1999 and 44 in 2000. The Guerreros join Cecil and Prince Fielder as the only father-son combos to see both players reach the 40-homer plateau in a season. If anyone is curious about the Bonds family, Bobby's career high was 39, so the Barry and Bobby came up one 1973 homer short.
Vlad Jr., 22, entered Monday hitting .318/.409/.598 (170 OPS+) with 5.5 WAR. He was leading the AL in average, on-base percentage and OPS+ while leading all the majors in runs, hits, OPS and total bases. He has a case for AL MVP. If he pulls it off, the Guerreros would become the first-ever father-son duo to both win MVP honors.
The Blue Jays came into Monday four games out of the second AL wild card spot.
